05/10/2012

Total Production International, July 2009 - Jean Michel Jarre

A year after the successful tour that celebrated the
30th anniversary of his classic Oxygene album, Jean Michel Jarre brought
his new In>Doors show to London for the latest leg of his first-ever
world tour. Paul Watson took a backstage tour at Wembley Arena for his
début with TPi...

Aiming to create a new level of intimacy between
the artist and his audience, In>Doors moves away from the much
acclaimed outdoor spectaculars that have earned Jean Michel Jarre
worldwide acclaim. Considering the sheer size of a typical JMJ gig, I
was intrigued from the offset as to how they intended to make it work in
an arena environment.

I asked tour manager Chris Rowley whose
decision it was to condense the big show into a smaller package. “This
project was driven by Jean Michel entirely. After the 30th anniversary
of Oxygene he was surprised by just how popular the shows were,” said
Rowley.

“Then, suddenly, there was a huge demand for something
that could work in a more intimate venue. That’s why we chose an arena
tour.

“There isn’t much of a depth of tour management in France,
in terms of moving a show overnight quickly. This is an area where James
Monkman [production manager] and I were able to add our expertise. The
crew totals 32 people and we use four trucks [from Stagetruck]. The
reaction has been fantastic and we’re playing to 6,500-7,000 people per
night, which is great.”

Heading up lighting and set design,
Ignace D’Haese explained that there is a huge contrast between Jarre’s
indoor and outdoor shows.

He said: “I worked on a couple of the
big outdoor shows and the Oxygene tour last year. With locations like
the Sahara Desert, the set is the desert itself, and in Beijing’s
Forbidden City, the architecture is the set. On the Oxygene tour we
didn’t use any beams or smoke to create a spectacle; the keyboards were
the set and everything was just ambiently lit.”

“Here, we use a lot of beams to create the desired effect, yet we’ve managed to keep the set-up fairly minimalistic.”

Belgian
company EML Productions is providing the lighting fixtures. Twenty-five
Vari*Lite VL3500Q spots and eight VL3500 washes are dedicated to the
musicians and the myriad of keyboards and synths on stage, plus 15 5kW
SXB-5/2 Synrcolites — nine on top and six on the floor.

Five
stands on stage accommodate High End Showpix fixtures and the impressive
lasers, provided by Dutch-headquartered supplier, Laser Image.

There
is also a row of i-Pix BB4 LEDs which reinforce and emphasise Jarre’s
rhythmic sounds while 144 vintage ACPs beam flutes of colour on to the
white curtains at the back of the stage throughout the show. Additional
(black) curtains are moved at the rear of the stage by Kinesys hoists.

A
bank of ADB ACP 1.2kW cyc fixtures are used to generate “pure
conventional light”, an important contrast according to D’Haese, whose
rig is controlled by Glenn Mollemans using a Chamsys Magic QF console.

Joost
Machiels, EML’s account manager, explained that the decision to host
five production rehearsal days at a Belgian venue was made simply
because his company’s stock was within easy reach.

“This made it very straightforward for us to make any technical changes, of which there were many,” said Machiels.

“Jean
Michel always wants new things in the show, and sometimes at short
notice, so it’s important for us to be flexible. We had to make some of
the equipment from scratch, such as the DMX-controlled Manfrotto ‘Black
Magic’ stands, specifically for this production.”

AUDIO

French
rental company Arpège Son et Lumiere is the source of the tour’s PA
equipment. At Wembley Arena, the system — the new K1 array from
L-Acoustics — was set up rather unconventionally at the rear of the
stage, hidden behind the two black curtains.

FOH engineer Alain
Courieux explained the reasoning behind this decision: “There are three
big advantages in setting up the PA in this way. Firstly, it’s
completely hidden, so everything on stage is visible from everywhere.
Secondly, wherever you are in the audience, the sound is actually coming
from the artist.

“Thirdly, the band are on in-ears on stage.
Usually with in-ears, they are constantly asking for more low end, but
they don’t need that because they are already getting it from the system
due to its position.”

The K1 system was configured just left and
right — without a central cluster — in hangs of 12 per side with eight
SB28 subs between them.

I was impressed by the clarity and the
sheer power generated by just eight subs considering the venue size, so I
spoke to Courieux’s son, Cedric, who helped design the SB28 at
L-Acoustics, to find out a little more about them.

He said: “The
port of the sub is slightly curved and there is no perturbation with
the air at the exit of the port, which is why it provides so much power.
The driver is a long-excursion driver, so the membrane is also much
better than the old one. It’s also cost-effective, as normally in a
venue like this you would need 12 subs; we only need to use eight.”

Courieux
is using 160 channels on his favoured FOH console — the DiGiCo SD7. His
only outboard devices are a Lexicon 960 reverb and a Yamaha DME64
digital mix engine.

Said Courieux: “The SD7 is one of the only
digital boards that sounds and feels like an analogue one. Also, the
quality of every built-in effect is very good. I am using a lot of
compressors and noise gates and it’s great not to have lots of racks of
equipment surrounding me. For me, this show requires only a 15 minute
set-up which is fantastic.”

When asked how many mics on stage,
Courieux smiled and said: “Jean Michel only needs one...to say hello!”
Four Shure SM58s are spaced across the stage to catch the occasion.

The
monitor desk is also an SD7 manned by Vincent Mantz who uses 130
channels. He also has a Yamaha DME64 for three delays, two mono and one
stereo, plus an Aphex Dominator multi-band peak limiter to safeguard the
levels to the musicians’ Future Sonics ear moulds — run with Shure
PSM600 IEM systems.

Jarre’s
dedication to his craft was evident throughout the time I spent
observing his interaction with musicians Claude Samard, Francis Rimbert
and Dominique Perrier, and the sound and lighting teams.

He
arrived at Wembley 90 minutes before the scheduled soundcheck, adjusted
FOH settings and hopped in and out of various seats, making sure he was
happy with the way the show looked from different audience positions.

Having
been kindly refuelled by Gemma Daly and her Eat Your Hearts Out
catering team, I seized the opportunity to get a little closer to the
action as soundcheck began.

No less than a two-hour production
rehearsal , this was the most thorough soundcheck I have ever
experienced. I was privileged to be allowed stage access and inspect
JMJ’s ‘keyboard fortress’, comprising 35 instruments in total, most of
which wouldn’t look out of place in a museum!

It included a
fantastic Mellotron, surrounded by various ’80s Roland keyboards such as
the D50 and the JP4. I spotted various Moogs, Mini-Moogs, Roland
V-drums, a Continuum Fingerboard, the Synthex synth that he uses for his
impressive laser harp show, plus two of the very first synths ever made
— the VCS3 Putney and Synthi which sit proudly together, centre stage,
directly behind Jean Michel.

I was reliably informed by Hugo Bunk
of Laser Image that these were the first synths Jarre ever owned. There
were also, inevitably, dozens of BSS Audio DI boxes scattered across
the stage, to accommodate all of these weird and wonderful instruments.

BACKSTAGE WITH JARREThe
final word goes to Jean Michel himself. Just before the show, he
revealed to me a little of his vision for the future of electronic music
and the fusion of old and new technologies.

He said: “In my
opinion, the next step for electronic music is to mix analogue synths
with digital equipment. We tried a number of experiments such as
comparing new virtual Mellotron sounds against the original and the
difference was amazing.

“It’s like playing a Stradivarius and having the sound of a violin on a virtual synth; two different worlds.

“I
think what’s been unfair to these instruments is that they have never
had the time to become idolised like Gibsons and Fenders because they
disappeared at the beginning of the ’80s just when they were about to
become popular. These instruments are still an integral part in many of
today’s young electronic bands.

“I see In>Doors as ‘something
in the allotment’. We have a studio album going on the road next,
followed probably by a greatest hits album and we’ll be doing some more
outdoor productions at the same time.

“This whole tour is a work in progress. It’s like an experiment for me, for the crew and I hope for the audience, a good one.”

The total number of page views

Jean Michel Jarre first came to international fame with his number one hit album, « OXYGENE » which went on to sell over 18 million copies worldwide.

A pioneer in his field, Jarre has largely contributed to the fastest growing musical revolution of the 20th century, electronic music : conceiving music in terms of sounds rather than only in terms of notes, and thus allowing the composer to become his own craftsman.

Having followed formal studies of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris, he was inspired to reinvent music at its core, with his own singular vision, deploying the technology and tools of his epoch.

This pioneering approach gave birth to worldwide hit albums such as "OXYGENE","EQUINOXE", MAGNETIC FIELDS", "ZOOLOOK", "RENDEZVOUS", "WAITING FOR COUSTEAU"...over 80 million albums sold to date.

Following through with his revolution in music, he also conceived a brand-new genre and format of concerts; breaking away from the traditional theatre and arena context, Jarre brought his music and vision outdoors to the masses. Often free and open-to-all, these stateof- the-art concert-spectaculars showcase the natural or urban environment in which they are performed -- a truly singular sonic and visual "land-art" event, conceived and performed on a unique scale for a one-off experience.

Jarre's legendary concerts have attracted Guinness Record-breaking audiences across the planet. They take place in exceptional settings, marking extra-ordinary contexts: first western musician invited to perform in post-Mao Red China, Millennium at the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Houston City concert in collaboration with NASA in memory of the Challenger space crew, Concert for His Holiness Pope John Paul II, France's Eiffel Tower in celebration of World Cup victory, Gdansk's shipyard at the initiative of Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa, London's Docklands, Beijing's Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the Sahara Desert...to the absolute record live audience of 3.5 million in Moscow.

Most recently, Jean Michel Jarre embarked on his first ever world tour which has already taken him to over 30 countries with over 220 performances.

July 2011, HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco called upon Jean Michel Jarre to celebrate his Royal Wedding by creating and performing a concert-event in the Principality which was largely broadcast on television & Internet worldwide to an estimated audience of 3 billion.

The French musician has a dedicated ongoing engagement to the United Nations via UNESCO, as Ambassador and spokesperson for Environment and Education.